Alphabet（Google母公司）在第二季度财报中超出了分析师预期，但其宣布今年资本支出将增加100亿美元，令投资者感到不安。这表明在人工智能领域的竞争正变得异常昂贵。尽管核心搜索业务和Google Cloud均实现强劲增长，CEO Sundar Pichai强调了在AI前沿的领先地位和快速的交付能力，但高达850亿美元的总资本支出计划，主要用于维持AI领域的领先地位，引发了市场对成本上升的担忧。Meta等竞争对手也在加大AI投入，加剧了这场“烧钱”的竞赛。

📈 **AI竞赛导致资本支出大幅增加**：Alphabet宣布今年将增加100亿美元的资本支出，使总额达到850亿美元，这主要用于维持其在日益激烈的人工智能领域的领先地位。这反映出AI研发和基础设施建设的巨大成本。

🚀 **核心业务表现稳健**：尽管面临AI投入的压力，Google的核心搜索业务依然强劲，同比增长超过11%，部分得益于AI概览的良好表现。Google Cloud也实现了三分之一的增长，收入超过130亿美元，并成功吸引了OpenAI等客户。

💰 **季度业绩超出预期**：Alphabet在第二季度的每股收益为2.31美元，超出分析师预期的2.17美元；总营收达到964.2亿美元，也高于预期的939.4亿美元。广告收入和YouTube广告收入均表现良好。

😟 **投资者对成本担忧加剧**：AI领域的竞争日趋激烈，Meta等公司也在增加投入，这使得Google的巨额资本支出计划引起了投资者的警惕。尽管公司业绩向好，但对未来成本的担忧导致股价在财报发布后出现下跌。

Alphabet beat Q2 expectations, but investors are uneasy over a surprise $10 billion capex increase.It's the latest sign that the race to stay ahead on AI is getting eye-wateringly expensive.Google is scheduled to explain more during its earnings call.

Google's parent company Alphabet beat analyst estimates for its second-quarter earnings on Wednesday, but its stock faltered after Alphabet reported it would increase its capital expenditures by $10 billion this year.

Investors have been closely monitoring Alphabet for signs of weakness as more and more people turn to ChatGPT instead of Google to find answers on the internet.

The tech giant saw strong growth in its core search business, which was up over 11% year-over-year, fueled in part by the strong performance of its AI overviews, CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement.

Alphabet also reported strong growth for Google Cloud, which recently signed on OpenAI as a customer and grew by a third to over $13 billion in revenue for Q2.

"We had a standout quarter, with robust growth across the company," Pichai said. "We are leading at the frontier of AI and shipping at an incredible pace."

Despite the strong performance, investors were spooked over Google's announcement that it would boost capital expenditures by $10 billion this year — bringing its total to a staggering $85 billion.

Most of those massive expenditures are for keeping Google at the leading edge of an increasingly competitive AI race.

Meta has upped the stakes with that announcement of a new "superintelligence labs" division and an aggressive hiring spree, reportedly making offers of $100 million or more to top AI researchers.

Alphabet shares were trading down around 2.5% immediately after the earnings release was published on Thursday afternoon.

Here are the key numbers for Alphabet's second quarter, compared to analysts' estimates compiled by Bloomberg and LSEG:

Earnings per share: $2.31 vs $2.17 expected

Revenue: $96.42 billion vs $93.94 billion expected

Google advertising revenue: $71.34 billion vs $69.6 billion expected

YouTube advertising revenue: $9.79 billion vs $9.5 billion expected

Search revenue: $54.19 billion vs $52.7 billion expected

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